CDC stops recommending COVID-19 shots for all

NEW YORK (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention has adopted recommendations by a new group of vaccine advisers, and stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for anyone — leaving the choice up to patients.

The government health agency on Monday announced it has adopted recommendations made last month by advisers picked by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Before this year, U.S. health officials — following recommendations by infectious disease experts — recommended annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older. The idea was to update protection against the coronavirus as it continues to evolve.

As the COVID-19 pandemic waned, experts increasingly discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older — who are among those most at risk for death and hospitalization.

But Kennedy, who has questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, abruptly announced in May that COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. He also dismissed the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with a handpicked group.

The new group voted last month to say all Americans should make their own decisions. But the CDC also says vaccine decisions, especially for seniors, should involve checking with a doctor, nurse or pharmacist.

The recommendation was endorsed by Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O'Neill, who is serving as the CDC’s acting director. O’Neill signed off on it last week, but HHS officials announced it Monday.

The panel also urged the CDC to adopt stronger language around claims of vaccine risks, despite pushback from outside medical groups who said the shots had a proven safety record from the billions of doses administered worldwide.

In a statement Monday, O’Neill celebrated the change, saying past guidance "deterred health care providers from talking about the risks and benefits of vaccination.”

“Informed consent is back,” O'Neill said in a statement some doctors objected to.